Tuesday, 19 May 2009

Tune in to Ergo Phizmiz's show on Soundart Radio for the next six weeks to hear a piece of Phizmiz history!

"Sticky White Glue", a 12 part radio-art series originally created for Resonance FM between 2003-2004 and not broadcast since, was the foundation for everything that blasted out of the various Phizmiz studios since. The first time Ergo fully explored, in rich and intricate combinations, the relationships between sampling, live instrumentation, sound-poetry, musique-concrete, and vocals, it was the huge brainstorm that started everything that came since.

ArtForum magazine, back in the day, said "Ergo Phizmiz's Sticky White Glue, a twelve-part series of sound montages--voices, music, and plunderphonic juxtapositions of the two--reminds us why radio has been described as "schizophonic," packing more disembodied sounds and voices than the ear can process", and webzine Robots & Electronics Brains described it as "genius". Vicki Bennett, aka People Like Us, described the show as every episode being like an album in itself.

The series was jam-packed full of collages, songs, wild fantasias jumping between and exploratively combining instruments and samples, noise compositions, electronic and electroacoustic music, and a generous serving of Laurel & Hardy, to whom the series was dedicated. It also features contributions from many long term Ergo collaborators, including Martha Moopette, Erik Bumbledonk (who covers the Disney song "Beauty and the Beast" to hilarious effect), and The Travelling Mongoose.

So - tune in to Soundart Radio at 2pm UK time Thursdays, starting May 21. Each episode of the Soundart broadcast will contain two episodes of SWG.

Friday, 8 May 2009

Tune into The Verb on BBC Radio 3 tonight for the second instalment of Ergo Phizmiz's "Pointballing". In a Victorian themed special of The Verb, Ergo presents a radiophonic adventure in spoken-word, sound-design, songs, and music, set during the reign of old Queen Vic - a kind of puppet-theatre for the ears.

From Radio 3:

As part of BBC Radio 3's Mendelssohn Weekend, Ian MacMillan's weekly programme dedicated to poetry and the spoken word explores the literary life of the 19th century, from its grand visions and Romanticism to its more curious and eccentric writers. Novelist and The Verb regular Toby Litt talks about some of the lesser-known poet laureates of the period, including Robert Southey, William Wordsworth and the unfortunate Alfred Austin, Tennyson's much-mocked successor, whom Robert Browning dismissed as the 'Banjo Byron'. Ergo Phizmiz presents some 'pointballing', his series of eclectic experiments in sound and language, this time with a Victorian flavour and in the spirit of the nonsense poetry of Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll. And novelist Gregory Norminton, author of Serious Things, reads The Chronic Omnibus, his new Wellsian tale of how the Victorians saw the future.

And exclusive to this blog in mp3, a sneak preview "behind-the-scenes" of the production of Pointballing, featuring recordings from the foley session joined by The Travelling Mongoose.

The Verb is on at 9.30pm (UK time) on BBC Radio 3, and the show will be available for one week afterwards in BBC iPlayer.

Thursday, 7 May 2009

This week's Ergo Phizmiz show on Soundart Radio is a broadcast of the Sounds of Soviet Animation podcasts, originally broadcast on WFMU. The show is an intricate and closely edited collage of music and sound-design from films created at the legendary Soyuzmultfilm studios.